Why Harry Potter?

One of the main themes -as I take it from the books- is death; swift, cloaked in black, faceless, so far and yet so close. The boy wizard, the child growing up to meet his eventual destiny, is actually in everyone of us. His insecurities, loss, self-doubt, and even at times arrogance or blind fury reflect what we felt as children and what we feel now as we realize how much is changing in life and in ourselves, how change creates anxiety and how quite unprepared we are to challenge those changes no matter what we seem to do. The boy wizard, whose legacy was born because of death, who is threatened by death and eventually should rise to look it in the face as he meets his nemesis is the average one of us. Beyond the clamour of life and its struggles: the only certainty is that we all will perish, but even death can not come unless we face our destiny and become who we were born to become. It's not fate that guides us, it is our realization that the unchangeable and the certainty will be met. We make this fate, we know the end so we create the path leading to it. The end is certain, the path is ours to take. All roads lead to Rome and all life paths lead to death. It is the fact that the good one will battle the dark lord is what makes the good so prepared and what paves the way to the final battle. In a way, our life is a self-fullfilling prophecy: we live because we know we will die, so we try to prepare ourself for the meeting. For some the meeting is just another road to a far better life, as J.R.R. Tolkien puts it: "a far green country under a swift sunrise," for some the meeting is the end and the passing of an era, for not a few it is where the ultimate answer lies and the long-awaited comfort and for others the meeting is a risk and an adventure, "an awfully big adventure" using J.M. Barrie's words. Death shapes us, like it shaped Harry Potter. It is what made young Tom Riddle a Lord Voldermort. It is in Dumbledore's serenity and self-sacrifice. Death shapes humanity and it is what guides us through; putting a meaning and an end to a mission or a quest. It calms us and energizes us. It is in a way the pilgrim's Mekka. We work, play, love, hate, pray, laugh, cry, drink and eat -travelling and walking the Earth- because we know it could end. The fact that it will end gives us a soothing feeling that afterall everyone will have their fair share: yes the days of light will perish but so will the pain, the weariness and the long long nights. Without death and its constant reminders, the world will be a bit more boring, a bit less certain, lacking meaning and awfully long. Nothing would be too late or too early. Nothing will be too important or too trivial. No need to be so attached or so romantic. No need to buy the roses or stop to smell their fragrance. The prophecy will not be fullfilled because it was not predicted and what we should be might be lost in the sands of eternity. --Pakinam Amer

The Shadow and the Yearning

Minutes ago, a thought came into my mind. It was not entirely original; it's actually something that I heard over and over again over the years but it never really sank in. The world is chaotic, many had said and I've heard. Now, this notion hit me minutes ago. Is it really? I understand it might be soothing to blame the world claiming the failure of the "master plan." Escapism has been the way many -including myself- have chosen to deal with a not-so-meaningful world, with its huge and subtle changes, realities and mystries, and even loss and advantage. I remember blaming "life" many times when I had the chance to; crying over a soul lost amid the currents of existence and the threat of an unevitable oblivion of my own physical presence. I remember blaming people, circumstances, world politics and even the state of the worldly affairs for things that came to pass, ironically enough because of my own making. But the notion hit me, right now for no special reason, I realize where I fell and why. How the shadows of my past, the shadows of my fears made me succumb to choosing the easy and on-the-short-run-comfortable way of life. Like the eccentric mystics and drunken sufis, my loss came because I lost contact with the present and was lost in the spiral of my own not-so-wise self. I chose to fledge to my inner self, my utmost inner being; a being who has only seen a past, refuses to live in the present and is as ignorant as I am of what is to come. I fell in a deep well: my own self, right down to my core. The world is not chaotic. I just chose not to delve deeper when the superficialities did not make sense. I chose to hide from a world in the cozy space of self-doubt and fear. For yes, fear is cozy. Because of it, I take no risks and I become a sleeper. Not a witness and not an actor, just a someone who sleeps as the world goes by: master-planned, fair, meaningful and annoyingly beautiful inspite of all its downfalls. --Pakinam Amer